Square’s Cash App Downloads Surge, Despite Bitcoin’s Price Decline

Per analysts, the company has benefitted little from adding BTC trading.

Bitcoin’s price decline seemingly didn’t affect Square’s Cash app, which introduced cryptocurrency trading in late January, as its downloads have been surging in the past few months, according to Nomura Instinet.

According to CNBC, Nomura Instinet argues Square Cash managed to “decouple” from bitcoin and grow at a steady pace, three times faster than Venmo, a competitor owned by PayPal, as it has reached 2 million downloads per month in May and June.

Square is more than just a bitcoin play. A lot of people were worried because it went up with bitcoin, but instead it's decoupling.

Dan Dolev

Bitcoin’s bull run late last year, that saw its price come close to $20,000 in a new all-time high, per Nomura Instinet, helped Square’s Cash app downloads grow in December. At press time, the flagship cryptocurrency is trading at about $6,270, having declined about 65 percent.

On the other hand, the Cash App’s downloads accelerated. In May and June, months where bitcoin fell 19 and 15 percent respectively, the app’s downloads grew 154 and 153 percent, according to Dolev.

Its users, and presumably investors, were never too confident BTC would help the app reach new highs, as reports have shown Square, headed by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, only earned $200,000 in a few months from trading bitcoin, as it isn’t charging fees.

Dolev pointed out Coinbase’s monthly download growth fell, in June, by 39 percent. As CryptoGlobe covered, Coinbase has been severely affected by the bearish trend most cryptocurrencies have been enduring, as it stopped being the number one financial app in the US, to hit 40th place in June.

Traffic to Coinbase’s website notably plunged this year, as in January it reportedly got 126 million visits, while in June it only got 28 million. The company has recently rebranded its Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) to Coinbase Pro, which launched to little fanfare.

Square itself is notably one of the few companies that received New York’s BitLicense, which allows its users in the state to trade BTC inside the Cash app. Per Dolev, this hasn’t affected download growth.

When they opened up trading in New York, you would expect a bump in downloads, but it didn't happen — if you look at the weekly trend it actually slowed slightly.

Dan Dolev

According to Yahoo! Finance data, Square’s stock is currently trading at $67.28, after rising 2.98 percent. Nomura Instinet’s price target for it is $82. It’s said to be about 200,000 downloads shy of PayPal’s Venmo.